Why Stopping in the Middle of Chaos Makes Sense to Keep Things Moving
The Counterintuitivity of Slowing Down to Go Fast
“It’s been a crazy week; sorry for not getting back to you sooner.”
“It’s chaotic right now! Can we reschedule for next week or even the next?”
“Sorry I am late: my last meeting went over, and I couldn’t leave.”
These are the excuses we use for not engaging in transformation for better. In other words, I can’t make good changes right now because chaos is consuming me right now. When was the last time your day, week, or month wasn’t crazy or chaotic? Sure, you may have had an hour here or there that felt like a stroll by a quiet lake. But didn’t that placid moment get wildly interrupted somehow? One of your people is quitting, and you are short-staffed. You just got a call from the boss who heard one of your people got injured last week. The software update hasn’t gotten quite up to speed. It’s budget season, and you’re on your third try to make your boss happy.
Chaos is the Norm in Many Organizations: Operational Excellence can be the Antidote.
Operational excellence (OpEx) is the antidote. OpEx begins and ends with the pdCA cycle: plan, do, check, act (it actually begins with O and ends with x, but you get the metaphor). OpEx is a way to harness the four forces that shape everyone’s daily experience at work: management, strategy, culture, and leadership. OpEx is rich with philosophies and principles that are distilled into practical actions. Take the daily meeting, for example. It’s based on the principles of pdCA and stopping to fix problems.
Stopping?!? How can we stop when we are surrounded by chaos?
The Counterintuitivity of Slowing Down to Go Faster
There is a subtle counterintuitivity to OpEx: stopping to fix problems (instead of just putting out the fires) leads to fewer problems. The problem (yep, I said that) is that in our default states—the conditions that we arrive in based on how we learned to manage—we find it satisfying to put out the problem fire and move on to the next thing. In fact, chances are very good that you, like me, were conditioned to—recognized and rewarded for—putting out fires. The more heroic the save, the better. The problem (yep, did it again) with that behavior is that the same fire pops up again tomorrow or the next day and continues to erode your workgroup or team’s will to press on. Eventually, because you, as the manager, won’t redesign the process (think: solve the problem), team members fire you and leave. This “quiet quitting” is real; the pandemic and other factors have exacerbated it.
The Daily Meeting or Huddle: Disrupting the Chaos Daily
If this is you—and it’s most of us, by the way—listen closely. Disrupt your team’s daily experience with OpEx. OpEx architecture includes a magical moment in the day: the 15-minute-or-less, standing-in-a-circle, near-the-start-of-the-work-day daily meeting or daily huddle. Here, team leader, you have the ability to stop the madness with six formidable words melded into one powerful question: did we have any problems yesterday? At first, you’ll go mad thinking about stopping people from working for 15 minutes: there is chaos all around! Of course, there is, but this will help. Next, your team won’t quite believe that you want them to bring up problems. No one likes problems. You may even get a little dodgy with your phrasing, side-stepping the word “problem” with words like issue, concern, and opportunity. We are all adults, though, and we can sniff out a well-intended but weak euphemism, right? Eventually, you and your team will arrive at a point where they trust that you want them to surface and report the status of problems. It requires time, management effort, and leadership skills.
Buying Exercise Equipment and Exercising are Different Things
The other day, I was extolling the virtues of the daily meeting or huddle with a client manager. He said he huddles daily, but they don’t have any problems. Problems come up during the day, and, wait for it, he handles them as they come up. I asked to see some problem-solving communication sheets on these problems. He told me they were all quick fixes. Team leader: “quick fix” is code for firefighting. It’s not problem-solving. The manager was like me when I bought fancy exercise equipment and installed it in my basement, and now it serves as a very expensive hangar for our ski clothing. My ski jacket gets dry, but I don’t fit. Get it?
Engaging with Leadership (Influence)
So, for now, until the next time, put some energy into your daily meeting or huddle. Make it a safe place for your team members to surface new problems and report on old ones. Do talk about problem-solving, but don’t solve problems at the meeting. Do invest some management energy in structuring the meeting for success. Engage the meeting, fully aware of your influence on others to be the change you strive for. Don’t solve problems for your team: engage your team members in solving problems. Next time, we’ll talk about the simple problem-solving method that is immediately hard to get going when you are used to firefighting most of the time. Until then, stop the madness.